.. the ending?

Well, I think a few of you would have heard by now that I recently got my transfer out of Telupid. Beginning the month of August, I have been recruited to be part of the Paediatric team in Kota Kinabalu. Yes, you've heard it right. I'm going back to the city! Short lived six months if you asked me.. but hey, I ain't complaining. :)
So what is going to happen to this blog I hear you ask... well.. I still have a few stories to tell.. pictures to put up (like I promised 3 months ago... ) Once I run out of stories from Telupid, I'll just start a new blog!! :D hahha no.. the title of the blog with just be a misnomer then.. I'll start my ranting and story telling from Kota Kinabalu. ^_^

Stay tunes for some blog! xoxo 

"Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today"

Sometimes I think people make the worst decisions in their lives.. some people tend to just make bad or terrible ones... and some, just sit on the fence hoping that someone else will make a decision for them. I think I'm the latter... I'm afraid to admit it.. but I think I am. I try not to be... and sometimes I succeed. Taking that risk in my own hands. I make mistakes... I learn from them.. at least I try to.. and hopefully that make me a better person. To point is to try.

A coupe of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today, he said. This is the man who discovered electricity. You thin more people would listen to what he had to say. I don't know why we put things off but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it had a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what is you're wrong? What id you're making a mistake you can't undo? The early birth catches the worm. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our parents and grandparents warning us about wasted time... heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day.

Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep todays' possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.

- Adapted - 

CHANGE...

When we say things like , people don't change, it drives scientist crazy. Because CHANGE is the literally the only constant in all of science. Energy, matter... its always changing. Morphing, merging, growing, dying.. it is the way people try NOT to change that's unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of what they are..... the way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones.... they way we insist on believing despite every scientific indication that anything in this lifetime is permanent.
Change is constant.

How we experience change...that's up to us. It can feel like death..or it can feel like a second change at life. If we open our fingers.. loosen our grip..go with it..it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like any moment, we can have another chance at life..... like at any moment.. we can be born all over again..

- adapted -

Pit stop...

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been posting up anything in my blog for a while now. The reason is, I'm a little depress lately and it feels like my world is crashing down. Yeah.. its more dramatic than it actually is.. but this is just one of those weeks or days where you feel that you have lost the passion of what you do and the day seems to be longer than it actually is. Oh well, life goes on doesn't it. C'est la vie!

Anyway, will dust out my camera and load some pictures like I promise. ^_^

And with the weekend of the harvest festival coming up here.. (though it doesn't apply to most of you who reads my blog).. Happy Harvest Festival or like the locals here says it "Kotobian Tadau Tagazo Do Keaamatan"

Cheers!

My first impression..

Q) What was your first impression of Telupid for a person who has never seen or heard of the place?


This was a question asked most frequently. Well, they say pictures paint a thousand words... my words can only simplify a few, but I believe seeing it through my eyes is the best way to describe it all...

I will begin from the place I'm living...

This is the housing quarters that they provided for me..

The view from my balcony... 

The stairs going down to the garage

My drive way... and this is what I have to deal with every single morning...  note to self: buy boots!

On the day when I moved into the house, I was greeted by 2 other nurses who were occupying the other rooms. Kind of them to have cleaned the house a little prior to my arrival. I was allocated the master bed room as my room. The room was minimal furnished with a single bed, a study table and a dressing table. It was slightly dusty and looked like no one stayed in for months. The built in cabinets were filled with cockroaches droppings and probably another 5 of them lingering around. Thus, began my spree of killing cockroaches.

I was fortunate enough to have my boyfriend , his mom and his uncle accompany me on the day I had to move in to Telupid. They too were speechless when they saw the place. They helped to tidy up the place as much as possible before they left back for Kota Kinabalu.

The first night there I was all alone. I was scared to my bones. I literally cried myself to sleep. Then came the thoughts and questions of life... Am I being punished? Why was I sent here? And so on and so forth. I looked forward to the weekend as I had plans to travel back to the city. That was my only drive for the week.. I started living life week by week, one day at a time. It was tough.. it made me tougher I guess. I had to start occupying my time with reading, surfing, joining my colleagues for badminton games and just making the best out of it. Now, 5 months since I'm there... I'm still trying to fill the void with work, blogging and so forth. :) But at least I know at the end of the day, I'd be going home to a more livable room, re-runs of drama series and to mentally prepare myself for the following day.. and the cycle goes on..  :) 

This is the dining hall... not much to see is there?

The hall... well the television is just for display ^_^ 

The kitchen

And the stairs to the rooms.... 

This the the way to my room.. 

Ta da! My room.. I made it as livable as I possibly could. :)

So there.. that's pretty much how my place looks like from the outside and the inside. But more pictures about my place of work and the clinic coming soon. xoxo.

Chapter 1

Sorry for the late post. I was pretty swamped with work the last week and then the Easter weekend came by and I couldn't wait to get back to the city!!! It has been to long since I last saw civilization and I missed it terribly. The smell of city with its fumes and pollution has never been so gooodd! :p ahahaha.. anyway back to the rest of the story...

My first encounter with Telupid was during my road trip to Sandakan sometime mid last year. The 6 hour journey to Sandakan was my first cross country road trip I had been since I arrived Sabah. The journey was loooonng...Nothing like the highways we have back in Semenanjung, these single lane, narrow roads with a foot long pot holes ensures the driver and his vehicle be well equipped for such a journey. There were certain stretches that were still under construction.....graveled roads about 100-200 meters at a stretch. Painful journey that was...... No rest stops in between.. if you have to pee... you gotta keep it in until the next town. ^_^  (people with small bladders are not advised to take this trip...) Thankfully there nearest town after you leave the city is about an hour and a half away, called Kundasang. It is a town right below Mount Kinabalu. Once you stop by, you can be awed by the magnificent view of the great mountain! Not to far on, the next town would be Ranau. Fairly big town (bigger than the town of Telupid that is..) with an average population of 71000 people who are mainly Dusun in ethnicity. Then, the road stretches on for another 92km from that point till you reach Telupid. Hilly, whiny roads are really a challenge to drive... but there are certain spots you can't help but admire the landscape below the hills... it is really beautiful. But that doesn't mean I really enjoy traveling like that each time...its just these little things that I try to cheer myself up.

Telupid town itself is a small town.. a few rows of shop houses.. people here are lives simple lives. Simple daily routine.....they work either in the plantation or their own fields the whole day, return home, dinner and then calls it an early night. During the weekends, most people would meet up in the market place storing up for the rest of the week. And this goes on for 365 days in a year. Not everyone here owns their own car, so their method of a local transportation is hitching a ride from strangers. Believe it!!! The locals call it 'pirates'. These 'pirates' owns their own van or car, and goes along the same stretch of road picking up 'passangers' to their destination. The fare varies depending on its distances but it ain't that cheap. (for the locals here anyway) For example, for someone to travel 200km to the healthcare clinic for his or her usual appointment would probably cost RM 8 per way.. that's RM16 for a return fare! Bare in mind these people earn very little a month (say RM 500 or less a month) and they usually have a large family to feed. So we doctors can't blame then if they can't make it to their appointments in time, or they can't come to the clinic earlier when a child is ill as most of there have so much difficulties trying to get to us in the first place. And the situation is worst for those living in the rural areas.. i.e. those who lives plantation, in the forest or those across the river. And we all thought it is only the 3rd world countries that have these problems.. it is actually happening here in Malaysia.

Doesn't it make you think how lucky some of us are? Time to reflex and be appreciative of what you have guys!!

Till the next time.. toddles!

The letter...

Has anyone watched Pride & Prejudice recently? I did... yesterday as a matter of fact. Why don't we speak like that anymore? Too tedious huh? We would have to curtsy as a formal method of greeting, say " Good day Sir" or " Good day Mr Darcy".. use words and sentences like "rejoice....in the inferiority of your recent circumstances.."  How did we evolved from then till the present? The only excitement you'd be looking forward to then would be going to balls and meeting handsome young chaps to be your husband. (seriously, wouldn't you rather be trouble by things like that?? ....maybe..)

Alright enough of sentimental crap. 

Before I proceed on to posting up pictures of my place.. let me explain who perspired me to start journaling about life here. If he was my relative, he would be my favourite uncle. :p Well... he is my boyfriend's uncle.. who is a town planner...who currently lives in Australia but is based in Sabah for work.. and who was so kind enough to help me move up here. He wrote me a letter with a list of questionnaires about my views, opinions and thoughts about the place here. And this is how the letter goes...

"Dear Doctor,


Congratulations on accepting the challenge of living and working as a government doctor in a rural town in Sabah. I would like to think that your stay, however long or however short in Telupid town is going to be an experience you were glad not to have missed.


Now that you have spent a little more than your first week I am sure you would already have some thoughts that you can share with others to help them cope with similar situations but also help the authorities plan improvements. 


My particular interest in your future experiences in Telupid stems mainly from me being a Town Planner but also someone who firmly believes that cities and towns , including rural towns in Sabah and Malaysia being capable of and needing to make significant contributions to nation building. They also offer people different ages, backgrounds, professionals, skills, and marital status and so on a variety of alternative lifestyle choices. 


As a town planner, my interest is also to learn from every individual and groups to discover the key ingredients of a successful rural village or town and what can make one more successful and attractive to live in than others.


There will be many perspectives on the same topic, but yours will be one that is very interesting to me because I already know you. Yours can also be more interesting story than most because of your educational background combined with you coming from a big city with an international reputation. Added to these is the fact that you can expect to see many different places and people from all walks of life in the course of your work. The fact that you have the opportunity to record all of your experiences in Telupid from the very beginning and in a systematic way makes the exercise all the more important to me.... "


And the letter goes on.. interesting isn't it not? :)

So stay tune for more stories coming to your screens. Toodles!